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The Minority Group Forbidden to Speak for Itself
Let there be no mistake: I appreciate Jill’s analysis of the backlash stemming from the Virginia Tech killings last week. She does a fine job of outlining the issues and responding to the vile platitudes of those who would lock us up. Also check Hugo’s account of his experiences in the mental health system.
If you follow the blogs of bipolar and borderline sufferers like I do, you’ll have noticed something: we haven’t been commenting on what happened. The main reason I think is that it invites a “are you still beating your wife” kind of argument in return. But beyond this is just a simple fact of life: we’re members of the minority group which isn’t allowed to speak for itself.
To live in mental illness involves a reality redefined by brain chemistry and by the social respect of one’s peers. Our brain chemistry can be straightened out. But the way others treat us because we suffer from organic brain dysfunctions is beyond our reach. And the nature of that treatment isolates us from having a voice in our own future.
Sure, there are plenty who speak for us. Civil rights attornies, psychiatrists, psychologists, people like Jill. But put us on a panel and ask a question about what it is like to be mentally ill and the audience will turn to anyone except us. People treat our complaints about stigma as if they were a hallucination. “Oh, you can’t believe that so-and-so thinks less of you because of your illness” is a not too atypical answer. Everyone involved in the mental health field is allowed to speak up for our rights except us!
People believe that our acknowledgement of our disease, of our embarassing episodes, gives them a license to patronize us. Perhaps it is strongest among those who suffer through denial of their own disorders (I can think of a few cases from my own life recently), but these model themselves after a broader trend. Stigma is not the same as the things that jump out from the sides of my vision when I am feeling manic: the feelings of being treated as unable to express my own needs come from real encounters with real people who think that they know better than I do what is good for me. In its worst manifestation, there’s a plantation mentality afoot with outbursts being treated with slapping or violent “taking down” by hospital staff. In the kinder, gentler cases we’re told to just pretend that we’re just imagining things.
A couple of weeks ago, a woman who I regard as one of the kinder people I know made a gaff when I told her that some bipolar friends and I were getting together to hike. “Oh,” she said, “it must be hard to make any progress when they are running back and forth all the time?” (You know — from pole to pole?) It wasn’t funny, but to keep a good face for myself and my peers in this disease, I let it go. This was a mild case, kind of like those light bulb jokes you hear about Californians and their love of doing things in hot tubs. Now if I had been black and reacted strongly to a racial epithet, my anger would have been understood and, yeah, even applauded. (And rightly so!) But I am the member of the minority which must, against all reason, keep a sense of humor about some of the stupidest and cruelest utterances known to the human mind.
When experts talk about what it means to be bipolar, they make reference to the many splendoured and strange things when we do when our moods shift. If there is a story involving a bipolar who commits an act of violence, you can rest assured that the illness will be mentioned in the first paragraph. No one talks about the abuse of alcohol in connection with such crimes, even though this accounts for a huge number of incidents.
The effect the insinuation can have on a human being who suffers from mental illness or a history of abuse can squash the heart of the best of us. Some years ago, I remember sitting in a support group where a fellow survivor said “You know, 35% of us who were abused as children will become violent as adults.” A long sigh expressed from the mouths of the others in the group, a sigh which turned to a choke of surprise when I said “100 minus 35 equals 65. That means sixty five percent of us will not be violent as adults.”
Two percent of violent crimes are commited by people who are mentally ill which means that the danger comes from the 98 percent who are not. What is seldom acknowledged is that the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of crime than the perpetrators, that we must bear a disproportional burden when it comes to being assaulted, raped, or murdered. We have much to fear from the rest of you and yet the myths about us persist.
* * * * *
Conservatives have started to whine about the perks we who suffer from mental illness receive. Obviously, they have not had to find a Medicare formulary which lets people order Abilify. A fine example of how conservatives manage to be our enemies while purporting to be our friends started out here in California back in the seventies. Ronald Reagan stretched forth his arms and announced to the world that he would free the patients from the state hospitals. When they were on the streets, they could go to community outpatient programs which would be much cheaper.
As a demonstration of our clout, we found ourselves out on the streets, but without the community outpatient programs. At least not for many years.
When it comes to funding, we’re last. And when voters approved a 1% Millionaires’ Tax a few years ago, the first to get money were police forces who wanted to know how better to get us to the ground and in handcuffs.
* * * * *
Undoubtably, what I have written here will be dismissed as a rant. I am, after all, bipolar and everything I say must be — without any suggestion to the contrary — be subject to close scrutiny. How many times have people come to me and told me what it feels like to be bipolar because they read some column where a psychiatrist was interviewed? People don’t ask what it is like, they tell me! Is it any wonder that I and my friends who suffer with this illness despair?
I know this: the sky above appears to be blue because of the way sunlight defracts in the atmosphere, gravity pulls me towards the ground, and many people cannot trust the public sufferer of mental illness to speak for himself. So if you have wondered at the silence, this is why. And if you haven’t, then you have shown that I have plenty of reason to worry about you.
Technorati Tags: bipolar disorder, mental illness, stigma, Virginia Tech shooting
Posted: April 23rd, 2007 under Hatred, Stigma.
Comments: 14 |
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Comments
Comment from James
Time: 4/24/2007, 2:55 pm
Great post. I think the worst thing someone ever said about me and my illness is that I’m not really mentally ill like the people in the state hospitals. So I guess unless you’re certified then you’re A-o.k.
There there was the guy who said, “Well you’re taking pills right?” As if taking meds makes everything fine. I didn’t have the energy of will power to explain that the meds don’t cure one but manage what they can.
Then there is the catch 22 that I’ve mentioned before. People are afraid of you if you talk about your symptoms but if you don’t people assume you’re fine and misdiagnosed. People especially like to call your diagnosis into question when you’re feeling good.
I put on a good face when I’m around most people because they don’t want to see what’s really going on inside my mind no matter WHAT they say.
Again, great post. Thanks for educating me too on some of the stats.
Comment from Joel
Time: 4/24/2007, 7:09 pm
Thank you both for your fine comments. I don’t think we’re being listened to, again, but we shouldn’t be surprised, eh?
Eclipse: yes, it’s clear that the fellow had some kind of brain dysfunction. He could have been a bipolar treated with depressive medications, for example. The question I have is what are we to do in the face of the “lock ‘em up before they kill” mentality? Do we get a chance to expand awareness about the disease or do we get silenced because, after all, we’re loonies? What I see is that no one is coming to us for understanding of what might have happened. (He could have gone off his meds, for example. And no one is asking questions about the culture of violence that his imagination fed into. We have Bowling for Columbine all over again.)
James: You hit it on the nail. I have many friends who keep their illness a secret from friends, employers, even family. When people don’t have any idea and you’re properly medicated they don’t realize. I have friends who hallucinate at work and no one is the wiser. Doesn’t make them serial killers, but it also makes them feel very alone.
Comment from prefer not to say
Time: 4/24/2007, 8:42 pm
As a non-borderline, non-bipolar reader, I’ve been waiting for you to post something on VA Tech coverage, just because the coverage has seemed so incompetent in dealing with the question of Cho’s mental illness, but I just plain don’t have the literacy about mental illness to critique it.
Which is a shitty first sentence, because I don’t mean to say “Oh, *I* wanted to hear what you have to say, therefore people are listening to you and you are just imagining it that your viewpoint is dismissed.”
More what I’m trying to say is that I’m grateful you speak from the experience of mental illness even though the condition of speaking is the inevitable rage at the prejudices that people (including me, doubtlessly) bring to what you say.
I could have easily been the friend who made the hideous “running from pole to pole” joke. My social idiocy knows few bounds. I need education. I’m not that fast at picking some stuff up. I appreciate that you keep speaking even when I — or someone a lot like me — or someone a lot meaner and more stubborn than me — dismisses you or belittles you.
Comment from Raine
Time: 4/24/2007, 8:54 pm
As far as I know nobody has stated that he even recieved any meds. I personally find one of two things. 1- people dont take me/my illness seriously- they seem to think I am bullshitting/faking I guess to collect SSDI and sympathy? This makes me very angry. When I am at my worst I stay home. I dont feel I should have to “demonstrate” my symptoms and humuliate myself in public to be taken seriously. If I say I can’t be out and about due to such and such a reason that should be good enough. I should not have to prove it. especially to some layperson who doesnt know shit about bi-polar and thinks they have the right to judge me and the legitamacy of my illness. F*ck That. The others are people who hear the words ECT , bi-polar etc and slowly back away with that look of horror in their eyes…….. My only comment to what happened in Virginia is that it is a horrific tragedy and I see only victims. I have no interest in sitting casting blame. The rest of the world will be spending lots of time and money doing that already.
Comment from Joel
Time: 4/24/2007, 11:43 pm
More comments! Wow!
Raine: I have seen mixed reports. One has it that he was hospitalized for depression. Some say that he was diagnosed with autism. Others say that he had no previous record. I have to register a big DUNNO! As for ECT, I have a few good friends who have gone that route. I don’t know that it was the best way, but having had it does not mean that they have handed in their human being cards.
prefer not to say: My problems with the coverage so far is that it is a lot of speculation and many people seem to grab on to the word “sociopath” when they try to explain what happened. I don’t think Cho was a sociopath. He’d find other means to get his way.
Borderline males are rare, but they do exist. There’s plenty of record for their reputation as stalkers. Murderers? As with any mental ailment, it’s rare but not unheard of.
Now, if he was hospitalized for depression, my wager is that he was bipolar and behind the Prozac Curtain. In other words, because of what they observed and what Cho told them, his doctors concluded that he was a depressive and gave him the standard antidepression drugs. When given to a Type 2 bipolar (one who tends to have more downs than ups, such as moi) they have the catastrophic effect of putting the person into what is called a Mixed State. Or, in other words, a mania-charged depression. This is the time when most of us try to kill ourselves (rather than hurt others). It is full of abyss-black energy. You throw brilliant tantrums, put holes in walls, break computer keyboards, etc. if you are of the type who does not believe in harming human beings or animals. 
Most of us are that way, by the way. About 98 to 99% according to statistics.
I suppose that if Cho was a bipolar, the next step is to examine what he was reading, viewing, playing. If you showed me his room and we saw a pile of violent video games — the heavy slashers — I wouldn’t be surprised. But it takes more than that, I believe. There has to be immersion in a culture that promotes violence. And one thing that no one has asked is: was he drinking at the time?
Bipolars are less inclined to be violent when they are sober, but when you get liquor down their throats, their rates of violence match those of anyone else on booze. I don’t know if the results of the post-mortem are out, but that is something I would take a particular interest in. Booze makes anyone mean, mentally ill or not. So do many street drugs. The public deserves to know the state of Cho’s kidneys and liver.
The main point I want to make is that the mental illness is a starting point for explaining what Cho did, but hardly the full picture. There are legions of bipolars out here in the world who never would touch a gun much less wound or kill a person. To understand Cho, you have to ask many more questions and some of those might be embarassing to his family (e.g. was he abused as a child because of his reported remoteness?) or not politically correct when it comes to the interests of the distillery industry. Of course, many street drugs can send a person off on a spree. But good old John Barleycorn is the worst for inspiring violence.
The final problem: Cho is dead. We can’t run him through the standard psychiatric tests. He can’t answer questions, tell us about his life. So it’s all based on a few hospital records and the reports of eyewitnesses. You gotta know someone well to explain what made them tick and, as far as I know, no one has come forward with that kind of information.
There’s a couple of sites you can visit:
http://www.mentalhealth.com — a nice site with oodles of information about mental illness
http://jennifer-roback-morse.blogspot.com/ – well, there’s a discussion that is a bit topheavy on the family side and the site of a ultra-chastity fan, but you might find some information nonetheless — this is where they got a little “was he a sociopath” happy, but it figures from what my wife tells me. It’s her audience.
Comment from Joel
Time: 4/24/2007, 11:54 pm
On the video game angle: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18220228/
Just grist for the mill.
Comment from Sid
Time: 4/25/2007, 12:30 am
I personally haven’t written anything about this incident on my blog for several reasons. Mainly because I don’t have the time or energy to go on a long and tireless rant on the subject, nor do I want to give face time to a murderer. I will say though that I’m so tired of the media making their own judgments about this guy’s mental health and with them bringing on psychologists and psychiatrists in order to try and diagnose this killer. At this point, there’s no way anyone can say with any certainty what mental illness he had, if any. And frankly, it doesn’t matter, he’s dead.
Figuring out what made him do it WILL NOT prevent this from happening in the future. There’s no way to predict what whack-job will go ballistic next, and there’s no way to predict if that whack-job will be mentally ill or not. But yet they keep trying to figure this all out, because they need to crucify someone or something since they can’t hang a dead man. They keep further stigmatizing those of us with mental illness with all this sensationalism. Using it to try to take away and/or restrict the freedoms and rights of the mentally ill even further.
As you mentioned…I’m far more afraid of the 98% of violent criminals that aren’t mentally ill. Let’s focus on those sick bastards instead.
Comment from Joel
Time: 4/25/2007, 1:01 am
Sid, yeah, you’re right. (I ended up where you began except I don’t think it is worthless to try to understand what happened here — you might save some other folks by an early intervention.) It’s really just speculation at this time and the only thing worth doing is explaining that this isn’t your usual path that mental illness takes.
If someone wants to know what it is like to be bipolar (me) or borderline (not me — ask Sid) or obsessive compulsive (me) etc., just ask or read back through the blogs of some of those who have commented here. You’ll see that our illnesses have many faces and they are not all dark, just debilitating when they are not managed.
As James pointed out, if you met one of us walking down the street, you probably wouldn’t guess.
Comment from marj aka thriver
Time: 4/25/2007, 10:57 am
I’m glad you broke your silence about this, Joel. And I must say that I see your writing as way too thought out to be a simple rant. But, I’ve got to ask this: We have PERKS? Holy cow! I didn’t know! How can I get some?
Comment from MrSoul
Time: 4/26/2007, 8:58 am
As a physically disabled person, let me say that I think the disability rights movement is split along mental/physical faultlines, rather like the mind/body split in Western Civ. People advocate for one or the other, not usually both. I’d like to see that change.
However, I think it probably won’t and this is why: Lots of mentally disabled/bipolar/borderline, etc people WANT TO PASS and TRY TO PASS. (And they can pull it off, too.) Not the bloggers you refer to. But then, are they all “out” IRL?
Many of us have no choice but to be openly identified as disabled, and we are mistrustful of the those who have the choice not to be, who can choose to pass. This is true of ALL social movements: people who can pass (or who are considered most similar to the majority) are always regarded with suspicion and mistrust by those who cannot. This impedes our uniting around common concerns.
When Patty Duke or whoever gets on TV and says all she needs to do is take a little pill and she is okay and normal (which, BTW, I don’t believe for a minute), then it has the effect of driving a wedge between physically disabled people (who can’t just take a little pill and magically be like everyone else) and mentally disabled people. If all you need is a pill, then no adaptation, no accommodation is therefore considered necessary. (That’s where the kvetching about so-called “perks” comes in; if one is “normal” except for a needing a little pill, you supposedly require nothing else. Hence, anything MORE is considered a “perk”…)
I’m all for completely integrating mentally disabled folks in our movement, but I would prefer that they 1) use the word DISABLED, implying permanence and difference, not “illness” which implies that one will eventually recover, as from influenza, and 2) stop putting emotional and political distance between us and them. To us, “mentally ill” people (when they don’t go off the deep end like Cho) are considered glamorously tragic and cool (yes, a stereotype, but a very different one than WE deal with) and have movie stars and celebrities in their ranks. We don’t. We are uncool, unhip and unattractive, and I think that is partly why the “mentally ill” keep their distance.
Sorry for length of comments. I don’t have my own blog, and no plans to get one. (Besides, I would rather comment where I know people will actually read it!) Thanks for addressing this issue.
Comment from Joel
Time: 4/26/2007, 3:40 pm
MrSoul: You’re right about the pill not being enough. Most of us have much more to do other than pills. We often do need accomodations at work, but if we ask for them, we can find ourselves being reassigned to a backwater. To give an example: a friend of mine was a mathematical specialist with an excellent university degree at a major computer firm. When Human Resources found out that she was bipolar, they decided she needed “a less stressful position” as a receptionist! Many choose not to take their chances precisely because of this kind of treatment and pretend that the pill is enough.
“Mentally disabled” is repugnant to me and other people who suffer from bipolar disorder because it suggests an incapability to think. We use “illness” because it does not carry the association of “stupidity”. You can call what we have an “organic brain dysfunction” and not be offensive. That implies an condition (illness) like diabetes or hyperthyroidism — where part of the body is not producing the chemicals it needs to function in the necessary quantities. It’s a matter of not wanting to be inaccurately lumped, not that we see our disease as being curable or that we deny our connections to other members of the disabled class.
You use a false dichotomy when you talk about mental versus physical. When we use mental, we mean to refer specifically to diseases that affect the brain. And the brain is part of the body. Our diseases (bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, maybe borderline) are physical. We often find ourselves allied with other members of the disabled on matters such as Medicare and accomodation. If anything, we have had a very hard time getting people to see us as disabled, to accept that we have special needs and that we can contribute to the employers for whom we work.
You should get your own blog. I’ll be sure to link and recommend you to others.
Comment from prefer not to say
Time: 4/26/2007, 7:25 pm
Thanks for the site links. I have one immediate family member with a diagnosis of bi-polar type II, and two other immediate family members with the exact same symptoms and an unwarranted faith in their freedom from mental illness of any sort. So I am familiar with the etiology of the disease.
I’m less familiar with — well, I’m kind of politically stupid still. Like, it never occurred to me to say “oh yeah — most people with mental illnesses never even come close to killing anyone, so mental illness in itself is probably not the complete explanation.” Even though I know plenty of people with mental illness, none of whom are murderers. Or even shoplifters.
What has me sort of transfixed by the figure of Cho is not his violent last few years, but the pretty consistent story that even as a child he stood out as troubled, silent, unaffectionate, unresponsive. Currently I have a friend trying to shepherd a mentally ill son (pre-teen) to a decent treatment plan, and what has struck me about her situation is how very little the so-called experts know. Doctors who are supposed to specialize in childhood mental illness say a lot of things like “well, there’s just no data on this” or “Frankly, we don’t have any reliable information on how well this medicine will work on children.” She was however, told quite cheerfully, that there was more abundant data on child murderers (ie, children who kill other humans) than there was on children who exhibited her son’s set of symptoms.
So, I’m kind of gobsmacked by the media’s foregone conclusion that what went wrong in the case of Cho was just a matter of his failure to see the right doctor or stay in the right hospital. Not just because I now get that mental illness isn’t a full explanation for what happened, but also because it seems to me to be a grave misrepresentation of the state of knowledge about mental illness, which seems to be radically underdeveloped and trying to do a lot of guesswork without a very good infrastructure to support it.
Comment from jane
Time: 4/27/2007, 10:21 pm
I agree with what you said about “mentally disabled”, to me it implies we’re of below normal IQ.
The prozac situation you mentioned, it took me a good 6 years to realize, but that is exactly what put me in my 1st mania.
I’m glad you mention Reagan. I get sick to my stomach when I hear people sing his praises, do they not remember or know the impact he had on the mentally ill & homelessness? Heck, he should be crowned, “The Father of Homelessness.” His idea of what “should” work, most certainly did not.
Did you catch on the news that the gov’t. said something like, “we checked & he was not on any anti-depressants”? Someone on a news show brought this up, implying the gov’t has records of what we’re on. I guess medicare would, but I’ve always thought that information was confidential.
Anyways, great post Joel. Discussion is greatly needed some place we feel safe & free to express our opinions.
Time: 4/24/2007, 8:18 am
Much was made of the shooter being a “monster” in the lower-end newspapers while other newspapers took a more balanced and inquiring approach to how the violent attack might have evolved.
Ppl in their right mind don’t do what that guy did … and the driving force for the violence would have been his psych condition, so I can’t see how that’s not going to be the focus of attention and I think it’s inevitable there’s a stigma attached to the whole psych thing.
But I also think that it’s like anything else … ppl are discriminated against or misperceived by others for a host of reasons that might alienate one person from another, whether that’s race, disability, criminal history, psych history or whatever.
I think I read somewhere that when it comes to ppl with psych problems that the stigma and all that goes with it is unfortunate b/c it alienates those that are already alienated and therefore contributes to the problem and that the people who cope best with psych disability or whatever are those with strong family support and other supports.
But I suppose it’s also important that ppl who have problems can feel that they can seek help without being stigmatised or robbed of their identity and autonomy or whatever else might go with being able to acknowledge difficulties and asking for help, so sensitivity and responsibility in dealing with the issues in the media wouldn’t go astray.